Omaha!

Before the Super Bowl, there was a lot of talk about what the game, or more specifically a loss in the game, would mean to Peyton Manning's legacy. At that time, I agreed with most experts that this game would have minimal impact on his legacy. The man has built a impressive resume over a decade and a half and put up ungodly numbers. He was coming off a record breaking year and if he plays for another couple of years, he is guaranteed to own pretty much all the records for a QB. More importantly, he already has a super bowl ring and it felt like a second ring would be huge, but he would be in the best-ever conversation with or without it. But then again, none of us expected a 43-8 drubbing at the hands of the Seattle Seahawks and their legion of boom. This was not all Manning's fault, but he didn't help a whole lot and he definitely couldn't pull the Broncos out of it. Now, the legacy questions are for real after this unmitigated disaster. QBs are measured by championships and the sheriff has lost 2 of the 3 super bowls he has played in. Even his baby brother has 2 super bowls in the bag. Peyton has some explaining to do.

The game started off ominously for Denver as the first offensive snap sailed over Peyton's head. There was a lot of attention leading up to the game on what Peyton does at the line of scrimmage and all the "omaha" calls he blurts out. And then he couldn't even connect on the first snap. The center hiked the ball when Peyton was still moving around trying to fix things. This gave Seattle a safety and the ball. The Denver offense never found the rhythm and their defense was toothless as always. I am not a big fan of crediting big hits with more impact than just the scope of that one play, but Kam Chancellor’s hit on Demaryius Thomas on the Broncos’ first pass might have been a big tone-setter. The Legion of Boom made a statement right away. Percy Harvin made his mark felt early as well and he actually put the game away with his kickoff return TD at the start of the second half. There was still some hope for the Broncos at 22-0, but Harvin's jets made it 29-0 and it was pretty much curtains at that point. Demaryius Thomas' fumble was another bone-crushing blow to Denver's comeback efforts and they never really got anything going even in garbage time. It was a total domination by the Seahawks defense.

For all the attention the "omaha" audibles got leading up to the game, it became a mockery during the game as the Seattle fans across the country started shouting it at the TV to mock every Broncos mistake on offense. It became their unofficial war-cry as Peyton was rendered ineffective by Seattle's defense. Credit goes to Pete Carroll and his staff for shutting down the most prolific offense. Speaking of legacy, the real legacy this super bowl impacted big-time was Pete Carroll's. The man now has both a college and a pro championship. Thats big! His QB Russell Wilson is a made man now as well with a championship in just his second year. He is not the most effective QB and you could even say he is a little bit over-rated, but he is hard-working and a great decision maker. Clearly, he deserves some if not a lot of credit for the championship, but he will get a lot of credit being the QB. As for Peyton Manning, not sure if he can make it to another Super Bowl given his age. I can only imagine how much more grief he will be taking now if he didn't even have that one ring already. I do expect him to have another season or 2 of stellar QB play, but a second super bowl might be easier said than done. We shall see in 2014.

Can anybody tame the 12-Th man?

Looks like the road to the Super Bowl will definitely go through the 12-Th man and the deafening noise he creates in Seattle. The New Orleans Saints went in there tonight and looked like the old 'Aints. These 2 teams share one thing in common in that they are both nearly unbeatable at home. They are both 6-0 at home and the playoffs in the NFC will be decided by who gets to stay home and who gets to go on the road. It's looking more and more like the Seahawks are going to be at home and that's huge for them. The Saints on the other hand are suddenly tied with the Carolina Panthers for the division lead and they better win that division. The Saints are not a team built to go on the road and create magic in cold weather. They need the dome at least until they have to go in to Seattle again deep in the playoffs. The crazy parity in the NFL has suddenly made the Carolina Panthers a legitimate contender in the NFC south where the Atlanta Falcons are struggling at 3-9. These 2 teams have completely switched roles from what was expected of them in the pre-season. May be the Panthers with that defense will put up a better fight against the Seahawks in the playoffs than what the Saints showed us today. The NFC champion has to come from either of these 2 divisions unless somebody from the mediocre NFC North or East go on a crazy run late in the season.

In the AFC, it appears like the usual suspects will be at it again this winter. Manning is at 10-2 and Brady is sitting at 9-3. Indy and Cincy are not far behind, but they just don't look like a legitimate contender. In fact, neither does New England, but they are getting healthier, continuing to win, and they have Tom Brady. Indy is definitely missing Reggie Wayne and don't look all that dominant anymore. Kansas City was always considered a pretender and they have been proving that the last few weeks, though there is no shame in losing to Denver. The Chiefs stayed close at home and had a shot against the Broncos, but they are clearly not in the same class. It would be interesting if the AFC championship game pits Manning against Brady and if the NFC puts Russell Wilson against Cam Newton. It would be the classic contrast between the old guard and QB royalty on the AFC side and the new guard and a window into the future on the NFC side. Of course these young guns have a lot to prove. NFL's parity will drag them to the dumps in a hurry. Just ask Joe Flacco and Matt Ryan. Only the true legends like Manning, Brady, and Brees are able to resist the ravages of parity and injuries and stay relatively consistent and on top. 

Week 13 in the NFL is significant for another reason. For most fantasy leagues, this is the end of the regular season. Good luck all you ballers. The thanksgiving weekend also featured some great college games. The iron bowl between Auburn and Alabama was an instant classic and people are still talking about it well into Tuesday. Auburn won the game by returning a missed field goal all the way back for a TD on the last play of the game. Tough way to lose a shot at a national championship for Alabama, but I am  not shedding any tears for a SEC team. Saban's decision to go for a field goal was of course the right call, it just backfired on him. We got another BCS mess on our hands, but I don't mind seeing some new teams in the championship game. Ohio State escaped against Michigan much to my chagrin in another close rivalry game. The NBA season is also in full flow and my Phoenix Suns are surprisingly not bad at all. It looks like the Indiana Pacers might be able to challenge the Miami Heat for real. Who would have thought a Indiana Pacers, Portland Trail Blazers game in early December will feature a 16-1 and 14-3 teams. But then again, it is still early December and there is a long way to go before we know if anybody can really challenge the Heat in May and June.

All Day, rookies are Chuck Strong.

Around this time of the year, you always hear people say "this year flew by fast!" We say that every year, but I do believe 2012 went by extra fast. May be it's because I was busy this year and had some good times. And that includes me making the Super Bowl in both my fantasy football leagues. I won one and lost one if you are wondering. I wanted to win both because the odds of somebody making 2 Super Bowl in 2 fantasy leagues in the same year is so slim and winning both would have only made the story that much more impressive. But I can't complain and I don't want to bore people with my fantasy stories either. In the real NFL, the regular season concluded today. Another year in the books, though the calendar year still has one more day. The story today was Colt's head coach Chuck Pagano returning to the sidelines. It's a heart warming story made better by the fact that the team seems to truly respect and like him and are winning for him and with him. They made it to the playoffs after the horrible season in 2011 - before Pagano, Luck and the gang got there. How good are these guys to make this kind of an immediate impact!

There are 3 rookie QBs playing next week in the playoffs with RG III and Russel Wilson joining Andrew Luck. That might be the most impressive stat of the year. Gone are the days when rookie QBs, even future hall of famers, were good for 10 to 12 losses. Now, if you get the right one, you can win 10+ with some good coaching and decent talent around them. These 3 QBs have been fantastic all year and they are all different. Wilson started slow, but is finishing very strong. He evolved from a game manager to a game changer right in front of our eyes. Wilson, Marshawn Lynch, and their stellar defense carry each other and the Seahawks may be a scary team in the NFC playoffs. Andrew Luck is the most traditional among the 3 rookies. He is an incredibly good passer for a rookie, but he does have some ugliness with his interception and completion percentage numbers - much like you would expect of a rookie QB. But his 4000+ yards passing and the innumerable 4-Th quarter comebacks have put the Colts in the playoffs despite a bad defense and a non-existent running game. 

RG III is the most sensational of the gang. He has put up some impressive numbers both with his arm and legs all season and is part of a balanced team much like the Seahawks, but very different. The Redskins, led by the 2 rookies - RG III and RB Albert Morris, eliminated the Dallas Cowboys today in the very last game of the regular season to win the division and make the playoffs. Romo and the Cowboys are staring at another miserable off-season as Romo threw some horrible interceptions and lost an elimination game once again. They are in trouble. They can't be doing this every year. Something has to change. They need a real GM and a new head coach. Romo is talented, but needs to be reined in. That simple! The strange part of that division was the Giants missing the playoffs altogether. How does that team with a supposedly buttoned-up, disciplinarian coach in Tom Coughlin and so much talent be so inconsistent and wildly unpredictable? They did end the year at 9-7 - better than the Cowboys, but no playoffs for either team.  The division was won by the Redskins whose coaching staff deserve a lot of credit for building an unique offense that perfectly leverages their rookie QB's strengths.  They won 7 straight to make it to the playoffs and will host Russell Wilson at home. That means at least one of the rookie QBs will be playing in the next round of the playoffs too, which will be amazing. 

With all that said, the real story of this season was All Day, Adrian Peterson. He almost obliterated Eric Dickerson's long standing yardage record with that reconstructed knee. For him to come back from that gruesome knee injury in less than a year with the ferocity and effectiveness he displayed leaves me speechless. Too bad he fell just 9 yards short of the record, but rushing for more than 2000 yards is always impressive, with or without a damaged knee. I can't wait to watch this guy in the playoffs. His performance almost put the unbelievable story of Peyton Manning's amazing comeback in the back burner. How about Manning leading the Denver Broncos to the top seed in the entire AFC behind a 11 game winning streak? He went from a shaky 2-3 start to a 13-3 record in no time! With the Texans choking away their season-long lead in the last 2 weeks, the Broncos are now owners of home-court throughout the playoffs. The rookie QBs and All Day are over-shadowing Manning now, but won't for long. A Manning-Brady AFC championship game seems very likely and I can't even imagine the attention and hype that game and Manning will get if and when that happens. To quote the Jets linebacker Bart Scott, "can't wait." 

NFC Best

Parity is the word that makes NFL great. Lots of good things come out of parity, though it does have some negatives like it enables mediocrity across the league more than greatness in some teams. But one of the things parity leads to is last-to-first and first-to-last transformation of teams overnight. As rosters are bunched together so closely on the talent-scale, an addition here or a subtraction there of a couple of talented players or even some solid experience can alter the NFL landscape dramatically. This is why we see a whole bunch of new teams making the playoffs every season. The best example of this phenomenon this year is the NFC West. This conference was the worst just 2 years back. Seattle won it with an unheard of 7-9 record in 2010. A rookie quarterback, Sam Bradford, in a bad team almost won that division that year. Then in 2011, Seattle moved sideways, St. Louis took a step back, and Arizona went nowhere like they have been doing since Kurt Warner hung up his cleats. Jim Harbaugh grabbed the division by it's throat and made the niners the team to beat.

But this season, the NFC West has been the best division in all of football. Everybody expected the niners to be a Super Bowl contender. The seahawks were expected to be slightly better.  We knew Jeff Fisher will make the rams better, but not right away and we didn't know what to expect of the cardinals. Fast forward to the here and now, this division has the most wins in all of football - 15, with 3 teams tied with a 4-2 record at the top before the Thursday night game. The niners are still an elite team, their embarrassing loss to the New York giants last weekend notwithstanding. I am not even sure if there is anything embarrassing at all in any kind of loss to the Tom Coughlin and Eli Manning led giants. They are still the most under-rated coach-QB combo in the league. The seahawks and the cards are much better than originally expected and the rams have improved dramatically, at least on the defensive side. And all these teams will have some staying power through the season since they are all built on solid defense. All the offenses in this division are shaky, but defense wins championships and defense doesn't disappear easily either.

The niners-seahawks game tonight took on an added meaning because of the records and how difficult this division is expected to play the rest of the season. The game was a defensive struggle as expected, but the physical running game of both teams had some success against the other defense. It was fun watching Marshawn Lynch and Frank Gore run wild on great defenses, but that's what winning teams do. Frank Gore ended up with the better numbers and the niners won the game, but this game is going to repeat itself multiple times this season as the niners, cards, rams, and seahawks defenses lock horns. This was the niners first division game of this season, though the seahawks are already done with all of their road, divisional games. Nice win for the niners before they go in to the desert for a Monday night showdown with the cards. This game was a little bit of a letdown for the Seahawks after their impressive win over Tom Brady and the Patriots, but this season is still going according to plan for them for the most part. Their quarterback Russell Wilson is no joke. I have been waiting for him to lose his job to Matt Flynn, but he is a fighter and is here to stay.

In baseball, yankees lose, the-e-e-e yankees lose!